The need to use these spacecraft also as bodyguards is the strongest reason to rescind the Senate's proposed budget cut for launching our first robotic servicing spacecraft. Any delay in its launch would greatly increase the chance of a space Pearl Harbor.

Satellite owners, satellite manufacturers, NASA and DARPA are planning a series of demonstrations to prove spacecraft can be repaired or refueled in orbit without the type of ambitious and expensive effort NASA devoted to servicing the Hubble Space Telescope.

The Mission Extension Vehicle built by Orbital ATK on behalf of subsidiary SpaceLogistics, will the first of several such robotic craft that are poised to compete for a share of about $3 billion worth of in-orbit services that satellite operators and government agencies are projected to buy over the coming decade.

Orbital ATK announced March 13 it is developing a new version of a satellite life extension vehicle intended to provide more flexibility to customers while also moving the company closer to more advanced in-space servicing.

Effective Space Solutions, a company developing spacecraft that can extend the lives of telecommunications satellites, has arranged to launch its first two spacecraft on a Russian Proton rocket in 2020.

A federal judge denied a motion by Orbital ATK to dismiss a lawsuit filed last year by Space Systems Loral seeking damages for alleged unauthorized access to information about its satellite servicing technologies.

A group of astronomers and engineers is seeking to convince NASA to study in-space servicing and assembly of future space telescopes, including the role the proposed Deep Space Gateway could play to support it.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission on Dec. 5 okayed the first part of a satellite-servicing mission Orbital ATK’s Space Logistic subsidiary has with Intelsat, saying the servicing vehicle can execute “rendezvous, proximity operations, and docking with the Intelsat-901” satellite while in a graveyard orbit.